I was accosted in a pub last Saturday by a man who wanted to know what I was going to do about him being sexually abused when a child.

He demanded I report on his plight in the Irish Mirror even though he had not reported the attack to the gardai.

This individual grew increasingly angry when I explained the media could do little for him until he took action himself.

A similar attitude has been adopted by many people rightly appalled by the mass murder of civilians in Gaza.

Certainly the mainstream media has given Israel an easy ride in the past but there is little proof that, had it been more critical, the atrocities being perpetrated against the people of Gaza would not have occurred.

There have been claims that Israel’s latest slaughtering spree is somehow different from past ones because the Palestinians are armed with mobile phones.

It’s of little comfort to the mothers and fathers burying their children that Israel is losing the social media war over Gaza.

The shocking pictures of dead and maimed children being dragged from the rubble of their blown-up homes or lying in morgues will stay with us, for a while.

And it’s sad the phones we use to record our happy times are being used by the people of Gaza to record their own little Holocaust.

If the Jewish people in the Nazi death camps had access to social media would it have saved them?

Probably not, as the Allied leaders knew about them anyway.

In a way Gaza is Israel’s open air concentration camp with a fence around it leaving those enclosed there with no place to flee.

The problem is Israel is fighting its war on land, sea and air, not on social media, and this pariah state cares nothing for bad publicity or it would not be aping tactics used by the Nazis.

Also, many of those who use the likes of Facebook and Twitter already know and care about Gaza, so it’s a case of preaching to the converted.

On the other hand there’s a chance that those who are unaware of the conflict will simply divert their eyes, and their minds, from the constant stream of horrific pictures of dead children appearing on social media news feeds.

Sitting at home drinking wine while whining on about the Gaza conflict is the online equivalent of going down the pub to argue with your mates about the woes of the world.

As I write this at least another 15 people, including a baby, were killed after an Israeli shell struck a United Nations-run school in northern Gaza.

Shelling schools which are crammed with children are war crimes yet our Government doesn’t seem to think so.

The Irish Government abstained to from a United Nations Human Rights Council vote on Wednesday on whether to investigate Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

So much for the power of social media.

Clicking the like button on Facebook is not going to make the politicians condemn Israel’s atrocities in Gaza – you might as well invite your “friends” to play Candy Crush.

Promising your local TD you’ll never put a No1 after their name again if they fail to do so will.

You might ask them why our Government is backing sanctions against Russia over the deaths of 297 people on an airliner and not calling for sanctions against Israel which has murdered close to 700 civilians in the past two weeks.

The limitations of social media were exposed during the Arab Spring when the world got great pictures but the people who took them became even more oppressed.

And is it not a big ask expecting picture-sharing networks designed for fun to be freeing enslaved peoples and toppling tyrants?

The truth is that when the horrific images stop coming from Gaza the social media circus will move on to get its clicks elsewhere.

Seagulls

I’ve always said that some of our senators are for the birds but it seems at least one member of the Upper House is totally against them.

Actually it seems like the Fianna Fail Senator has lost the run of himself, claiming that the birds have even been stealing food from children’s hands. Haven’t finance ministers being doing that for years?

The good Senator should be more concerned about the muggers and drug dealers that infest central Dublin than the gulls that scavenge thrown-away fast food after an evening’s debauchery in Temple Bar.